MEL UK!!! Good to see you back!!!

Elvis:

• Power 3's (well, it's still sucks but it's much better than last month.)
• Backspins!!! There's a first!!! Still crappy but getting closer still. There's hope for me...
• Salchow... another first!!! My coach saw one and said "This is good! Let's do waltz-toeloop."

Mr. Hyde:

• Loops
• Toe loops... GAWD I hate that jump!
• Waltz-toe loop. Waltz OK, toe loop is a toe waltz.
• Flips... tired of just being stuck the same as the loop. (Two footing the landing.)
• Forward Alt crossovers. SLOOOOW!!! No sense of power. (What's with me???)

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

What a ghastly morning - oh please, if it goes on like this I shall give up, I really will.

First of all, the ice was crap. I don't know whether the Zamboni has broken down, or what, but it was utterly appalling. I think some effort had been made to cut it, but you wouldn't have noticed.

Then came the news that my poor coach has broken his ankle. Apparently he was doing double loops very happily on the ice yesterday afternoon, and then fell doing a 3-jump (waltz jump) off-ice. He had hoped to be teaching today from the boards, but his wife said he really couldn't get out of bed! She has had gastro-enteritis all week, which isn't a good idea when you are 6 months pregnant.....

Then, before I could even get on the ice, Robert dug his toe-rake in and went flying - his knee is now the size of a young football, but doesn't hurt. I administered arnica instantly, both orally and locally, and then made him take 400 mg ibuprofen as soon as we got home.

So what with one thing and another, I was totally and utterly unmotivated to skate this morning! I did do a tiny bit of work on the end pattern of the Fiesta with Robert, and towards the end of the session I worked on my OD, but that was about all....

Definitely not the best sort of day to have when you've a competition tomorrow! But that won't be so bad - we have no hope of doing anything other than trying not to come last, so we'll just relax and enjoy it, and seeing all our friends is always fun. We will skate tomorrow morning, but whether we'll have our lesson or not is dubious - if not, I'll just gate-crash Robert's solo lesson!

Meanwhile, I shall make a Get Well card for my coach and attach it to a bottle of red wine, which he adores....

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Elvis:
Spins felt good and I've been working on some exercises from an edge class I took a few Sundays ago. (And I wore a skating skirt and tights for the first time in that class. I felt naked on the ice but also a lot more stretched out...)


Mr. Hyde--
Dratted FI3s! I haven't had a chance to practice much recently and they're all wonky. I test on them next weekend, so here's hoping I can iron them out in this coming week's practices.

Nearly took a nosedive practicing a LFI spiral. I didn't even think that my weight was that far forward, then I could feel my toepick but was able to bring my right foot down and catch myself.

Oh, Annabel! That really is dreadful, but I'm sure it won't go on like that. So sorry you have such a cloud of gloom over you at present. This has to be a bit of bad luck, which will be followed by healthy recoveries for your coach and Robert, and many more happy days at the rink.

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I think it's been at least a year since I've posted on the lesson thread! It's great to catch up on everyone's skating progress!

Now that I'm unemployed, I've been able to get some actual practice time at our local rink. I'm only on Basic Skills freeskate 2, but here goes:

Elvis: My toe-loop is good enough to pass, now that I remember to glide a bit after the three turn, instead of 3-turn-pick-splat... My back outside consecutive edges are actually being done on the outside edge (well, most of the time) and 3 out of 4 forward spirals are very secure - just that weird left inside one is still wonky. But it's progress! It took me a full year of Basic Skills lessons (with no opportunity for practice) to get through freeskate 1, so getting through half of freeskate 2 in a 9 week spring session would be great!

Mr. Hyde: I shall never get more than one revolution out of my backspin And that one rev is horrible! And I've lost my scratch spin (again)

Schmeck, happy to be able to post again!

So I go to the rink for my lesson today. When I get there, my coach says to me "It may be chaos out there today, Elvis Stojko, Irina Slutskaya and a Russian Pair (T&M?) are here and they are warming up. I think they're going to skate on our ice." Sure enough all of them came out and skated on the session.

So fabulous to see that kind of skating close up. Unfortunately, the kids at the rink mobbed Elvis, so we adult skaters had to play it cool. I would have loved to at least told Elvis and Irina I was a fan, but didn't think it was cool given our club kids.

Oh, and then there was the "incident" (see my post under Firsts.) as my Mr. Hyde part of the day.

What? you got to see Elvis and Irina close up? skating? *faints*

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~
Tidesong